Quora

For the legislature term, see Quorum.
Quora, Inc.
Type Private
Headquarters Mountain View, California
Area served Worldwide
Founder(s) Adam D'Angelo
Charlie Cheever
Key people Adam D'Angelo (CEO)
Employees 106[1]
Slogan(s) The best answer to any question.
Website quora.com
Written in Python
Alexa rank Decrease 149 (January 2016)[2]
Type of site Question & answer
Registration Required
Available in English
Launched June 2009 (2009-06)
Current status Active

Quora is a question-and-answer website where questions are asked, answered, edited and organized by its community of users. The company was founded in June 2009, and the website was made available to the public on June 21, 2010.[3] Quora aggregates questions and answers to topics. Users can collaborate by editing questions and suggesting edits to other users' answers.[4]

History

Further information: Timeline of Quora

Quora was co-founded by two former Facebook employees, Adam D'Angelo and Charlie Cheever. D'Angelo resigned from his position at Facebook in January 2010 to create Quora.[5] He said that he and Cheever were inspired to create Quora because "we thought that Q & A is one of those areas on the internet where there are a lot of sites, but no one had come along and built something that was really good yet."[6] Quora's base of users grew quickly in December 2010.[7]

Quora had an estimated 500,000 registered users, as of January 2011.[8] In June 2011, Quora redesigned its website, in order to make information discovery and navigation easier. Some noted that the redesigned site had definite similarities to Wikipedia.[9] Quora released an official iPhone app on September 29, 2011 and an official Android app on September 5, 2012.

In September 2012, Quora announced that co-founder Charlie Cheever was stepping back from a day-to-day role at the company, while continuing to retain an advisory role.[10][11] An article in Business Insider quoted an anonymous Quora answer, claimed to be written by an insider, that stated that Cheever left the company because he wanted to focus on the user experience, whereas D'Angelo wanted to focus on growth, and D'Angelo, by financing the Series B investment mostly from his own money, acquired sufficient control over the company to have things his way.[12]

In January 2013, Quora launched a blogging platform.[13]

Quora launched full text search of questions and answers on its website on March 20, 2013,[14] and extended the feature to mobile devices in late May 2013.[15] It also announced in May 2013 that all its metrics had tripled relative to the same time in the prior year.[16]

On November 12, 2013, Quora introduced a feature they called Stats that they billed as a dashboard for writers. This would allow all Quora users to see summary and detailed statistics regarding how many people had viewed, upvoted, followed, and shared their questions and answers.[17][18] TechCrunch reported that, although Quora did not have any immediate plans for monetization, they believed that search ads would likely be their eventual source of monetization.[19]

In April 2014, it was announced that Quora was raising $80 million from Tiger Global at a reported $900 million valuation.[20][21][22][23] Quora was also one of the members of the Summer 2014 Y Combinator batch.[24][25][26]

Operation

Quora requires users to register with their real names rather than a screen name, and the site is essentially unusable if a user is not logged in and using cookies. Quora users may also log into Quora with their Google or Facebook accounts using the OpenID technology. Quora users can upvote or downvote answers; they can also suggest edits to existing answers provided by other users. The Quora community includes some well-known people, such as Marc Andreessen, Dustin Moskovitz, Jimmy Wales, Stephen Fry, Ashton Kutcher, Avicii, John Green (author), Adrián Lamo, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.[8][27][28][29] About 40% of Quora users are from India as of January 2016.[30]

Quora uses the Pylons and Comet technologies for its backend and Ubuntu Linux as its operating system with MySQL as its database. It also uses Git and memcached. Quora uses Nginx as a reverse proxy server and HAProxy for load balancing. Quora has developed its own algorithm for ranking answers, which works similarly to PageRank.[31] Quora uses Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud technology to host the servers that run its website.[32][33] In August 2011, Quora switched its infrastructure's Python implementation from CPython to PyPy, in order to improve response time.

Privacy concerns

In August 2012, blogger Ivan Kirigin pointed out that it was possible for acquaintances and followers to see his activity including which questions he had looked at.[34] In response, Quora stopped showing question views in feeds later that month. By default, Quora exposes its users' profiles, including their real names, to search engines.[35]

Financials

In March 2010, Quora received funding in the amount of $11 million from Benchmark Capital, valuing the start-up at $86 million.[36]

In May 2012, Quora raised $50 million in Series B funds, valuing the company at over $400 million,[37][38] bringing their total funding to $61 million. Co-founder D'Angelo, who owns 0.8% of Facebook stock, also invested $20 million of his own money in the B round.[38]

In April 2014, Quora announced an $80 million Series C round of funding, valuing the company at over $900 million. The funding was led by Tiger Global Management.[20][21][22][23] D’Angelo also said the site would likely introduce its first ads in 2015.

Reception

Quora was reviewed extensively by the media in 2010.[39][40][41]

According to Robert Scoble, Quora succeeded in combining attributes of Twitter and Facebook.[42] Later, in 2011, Scoble criticized Quora for being a "horrid service for blogging," and although a decent question and answer website, not substantially better than competitors.[43]

In 2010, D'Angelo and Cheever were among five named "Smartest Engineer runner-up" in the "smartest people in the tech" article by CNNMoney.[44] They were also both listed in Inc. magazine's "Top 30 Under-30" entrepreneurs list of 2011.[45][46]

Timeline

Year Month and date Event type Details
2009JuneProductQuora is founded.
2010MarchFunding Quora raises $11 million in a series A, with Benchmark Capital as an investor.[47]
2010 JuneProduct Quora announces that it will open up to the public.[48]
2011JanuaryTeam Marc Bodnick leaves Elevation Partners to join Quora.[49]
2011JulyProductQuora introduces video to its Q&A pages.[50]
2011JulyProductQuora introduces Credits for asking-to-answer questions.[51]
2011SeptemberProductQuora introduces threaded comments and comment voting.[52]
2012MayFunding Quora raises $50 million in a series B, with Peter Thiel and Adam D'Angelo as investors.[47]
2012SeptemberTeamCo-founder Charlie Cheever leaves in a mysterious incident.[53]
2012NovemberProduct Quora introduces Top Writers program.[54]
2013JanuaryProduct Quora introduces blogs.[55]
2013NovemberProductQuora introduces "Stats", an analytics tool for writers.[56]
2014AprilFunding Quora raises $100 million in a series C at $900 million valuation, with Tiger Global Management and Y Combinator as investors.[47][57]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "quora.com". quora.com. Retrieved 2014-12-07.
  2. ↑ "Quora.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2015-01-23.
  3. ↑ Monday, June 21st, 2010 (2010-06-21). "Quora’s Highly Praised Q&A Service Launches To The Public (And The Real Test Begins)". Techcrunch.com. Retrieved 2013-04-06.
  4. ↑ Wortham, Jenna (March 12, 2010). "Facebook Helps Social Start-Ups Gain Users". New York Times. Retrieved March 29, 2010.
  5. ↑ "Why I Quit My CTO Job At Facebook And Started Quora". Business Insider. Retrieved March 29, 2010.
  6. ↑ "The Mystery Behind Quora". Boston Innovation. Retrieved March 29, 2010.
  7. ↑ Lewenstein, ed. (November 28, 2010). "Quora Signups Explode". Retrieved January 24, 2011.
  8. 1 2 Arthur, Charles; Jemima Kiss (5 January 2011). "Quora: the hottest question-and-answer website you've probably never heard of". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 31 May 2012.
  9. ↑ Tsotsis, Alexia (2011-06-24). "Inspired by Wikipedia, Quora aims for relevancy with topic groups and reorganized topic pages". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 2013-04-06.
  10. ↑ Cutler, Kim-Mai (2012-09-11). "Quora Co-Founder Charlie Cheever Steps Back From Day-To-Day Role At The Company". TechCrunch.
  11. ↑ "What is Charlie Cheever's status at Quora as of September 11th, 2012?". Quora.
  12. ↑ Carlson, Nicholas (October 2, 2012). "The Sudden, Mysterious Exit Of A Quora Cofounder Has Silicon Valley Baffled". Business Insider. Retrieved October 3, 2014.
  13. ↑ Constine, Josh (2013-01-23). "Quora Launches Blogging Platform With Mobile Text Editor To Give Every Author A Built-In Audience". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2013-02-01.
  14. ↑ Russell, Jon (2013-03-21). "Quora finally introduces full-text search to boost content discovery". The Next Web. Retrieved 2013-11-14.
  15. ↑ Constine, Josh (2013-05-29). "Quora Brings Full-Text Search To Mobile To Unlock FAQ&As For Any Keyword". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2013-11-14.
  16. ↑ Tsotsis, Alexia (2013-05-28). "Quora Grew More Than 3X Across All Metrics In The Past Year". Retrieved 2013-11-14.
  17. ↑ Gannes, Liz (2013-11-12). "Quora Gives Its Writers a Stats Dashboard". AllThingsD. Retrieved 2013-11-14.
  18. ↑ Truong, Alice (2013-11-12). ""Quora Stats" Tells You If People Find Your Posts Useful". Fast Company. Retrieved 2013-11-14.
  19. ↑ Constine, Josh (2013-11-13). "Quora Signals It’s Favoring Search Ads For Eventual Monetization, Launches Author Stats Tool". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2013-11-14.
  20. 1 2 Constine, Josh (April 9, 2014). "Quora Wants To Stay Independent, Raises $80M Series C From Tiger Global At ~$900M Valuation". TechCrunch. Retrieved May 11, 2014.
  21. 1 2 Konrad, Alex (May 9, 2014). "Quora Raises $80 Million From Tiger Global To 'Stay Independent Forever'". Forbes. Retrieved May 11, 2014.
  22. 1 2 McBride, Sarah (April 9, 2014). "Tiger Global helps Q&A site Quora raise $80 million". Reuters. Retrieved May 11, 2014.
  23. 1 2 "Quora Raises $80M Led by Tiger Global, Now Valued at $900Ml". Re/code. 9 April 2014. Retrieved 11 April 2014.
  24. ↑ Constine, Josh (May 11, 2014). "Q: Why Did Quora Join Y Combinator? A: It Was Almost Free". TechCrunch. Retrieved May 11, 2014.
  25. ↑ Altman, Sam (May 9, 2014). "Quora in the next YC batch". Y Combinator. Retrieved May 12, 2014.
  26. ↑ Kokalitcheva, Kia (May 9, 2014). "Meet the oldest Y Combinator startup ever: Quora". VentureBeat. Retrieved May 12, 2014.
  27. ↑ "Quora morphs from adolescence to hot property". linkedmediagroup.com. Retrieved 2013-04-06.
  28. ↑ Dishman, Lydia (2011-01-04). "fastcompany.com". fastcompany.com. Retrieved 2013-04-06.
  29. ↑ Taber, Jane (October 19, 2011). "Quora offers clues as to why Justin Trudeau won't yet seek Liberal helm — The Globe and Mail". The Globe and Mail (Toronto).
  30. ↑ "quora.com Site Overview". www.alexa.com. Retrieved 10 January 2016.
  31. ↑ "Quora's New Algorithm for Ranking Answers". ReadWriteWeb. Retrieved March 29, 2010.
  32. ↑ "Quora Signups". ReadWriteWeb. Retrieved March 29, 2010.
  33. ↑ Lohr, Steve (April 22, 2011). "Amazon Malfunction Raises Doubts About Cloud Computing". The New York Times.
  34. ↑ "This is a bit fucked, Quora". Giantrobotlasers.com. 2012-08-13. Retrieved 2013-04-06.
  35. ↑ "Quora Privacy Policy". Retrieved 7 April 2014.
  36. ↑ "Benchmark Invests at $86 Million Valuation". TechCrunch. Retrieved March 29, 2010.
  37. ↑ Raice, Shayndi (May 15, 2012). "Former Facebook Hands Capitalize on Buzz". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved July 17, 2012. Quora raised $50 million in a new financing that values it at $400 million, up from a valuation of around $86 million two years ago, said people familiar with the matter. The new financing round is led by Facebook board member Peter Thiel, who invested with his own personal funds, May 15, 2012
  38. 1 2 Facebook Alums Push Q&A Site Quora. Wall Street Journal. May 15, 2012.
  39. ↑ "V.C.’s Answer Yes to Quora". Nytimes.com. March 30, 2010. Retrieved March 29, 2010.
  40. ↑ Baig, Edward C. "Social-networking site Quora has answers to your questions". USA Today. Retrieved March 29, 2010.
  41. ↑ Yiannopoulos, Milo. "Quora will be bigger than Twitter". London: Telegraph. Retrieved March 29, 2010.
  42. ↑ "Is Quora the biggest blogging innovation in 10 years". Scobleizer. Retrieved March 29, 2010.
  43. ↑ "Why I was wrong about Quora as a blogging service...". Scobleizer. January 30, 2011. Retrieved August 9, 2011.
  44. ↑ "CNN 2010 Smartest People in Tech". Money.cnn.com. 2010-07-09. Archived from the original on 12 July 2010. Retrieved 31 March 2015.
  45. ↑ "Top 30 Under 30, 2011". inc.com.
  46. ↑ "Honoree Profiles for C.Cheever, A.D'Angelo, Top 30 Under 30, 2011". inc.com.
  47. 1 2 3 "Quora". Https:. Retrieved July 1, 2015.
  48. ↑ "Q&A search site Quora opens to the public - CNET". Cnet.com. Retrieved July 1, 2015.
  49. ↑ "Meet Quora's New Grown-Up: Elevation Partners' Marc Bodnick - Business Insider". Businessinsider.com. Retrieved July 1, 2015.
  50. ↑ "Quora Adds Video To Its Q&A Pages". Techcrunch.com. Retrieved July 1, 2015.
  51. ↑ "Quora Testing User Credits For "Ask To Answer" Questions". Techcrunch.com. Retrieved July 1, 2015.
  52. ↑ "Quora Gets Threaded Comments, Comment Voting, Editing And Images". Techcrunch.com. Retrieved July 1, 2015.
  53. ↑ Lim Yung-Hui (September 12, 2012). "Co-Founder Charlie Cheever Leaves And Quora Is Curve Jumping". Forbes. Retrieved July 1, 2015.
  54. ↑ "Quora Introduces A New Top Writers Program As A Hat Tip To Its Most Valuable Contributors". Fastcompany.com. Retrieved July 1, 2015.
  55. ↑ "(1) Introducing Blogs on Quora - The Quora Blog - Quora". Https:. Retrieved July 1, 2015.
  56. ↑ "Quora Introduces "Stats," an Analytics Tool for Writers". Lonelybrand.com. Retrieved July 1, 2015.
  57. ↑ "Quora Wants To Stay Independent, Raises $80M Series C From Tiger Global At ~$900M Valuation". Techcrunch.com. Retrieved July 1, 2015.

External links

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